Managing employees during pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact the workplace, leaving businesses to struggle with challenges, while keeping employees happily employed. Whether one is working from home or going to work physically, with the repeated onslaught of new waves, the pandemic can dampen one’s enthusiasm for work and in turn lower performance. Working from home, being physically removed from the workplaces, co-workers, familiar daily routines and fragmented team cohesion can understandably cause a drop in morale.

Under such trying circumstances, researchers such as Stevens Institute of Technology, US, Associate Professor of Management, Wei Zheng, believes that fostering a sense of inclusion at work is vital. Based on her research in New York and New Jersey, two states most impacted at the outset of COVID-19 in the US, Zheng has reason to believe that certain definitive patterns in leadership behaviour affords employees a sense of stability, empowerment, and inclusion in spite of the crisis.

Showing appreciation is a surefire way of boosting work performance. According to her Harvard Business Review article ‘5 Strategies to Support Your Employees Through a Crisis’, recognizing, praising, and otherwise showing appreciation for a person’s work, dedication, effort, and contributions allows employees to feel proud and validated during a time when contact with co-workers was curtailed and job security is in question.

Every employee fulfils a different job role and support tailored to each individual, that takes into account individual needs, preferences, and circumstances, can go a long way in helping employees to accomplish work goals. This is vital because different employees have varying degrees of of familiarity with remote-work technology, while family situations, living arrangements, and socioeconomic circumstances also differ.

Zheng opines that those in leadership positions should be attuned to individual challenges. She has pointed out that employers should also be mindful of parents who would be expected to home-school children while simultaneously working from home. In such situations it would be advisable to offload their tasks to someone who has the bandwidth. Leaders are responsible for redistributing tasks among team members to accommodate changing situations. In research, titled ‘COVID-19 and the Workplace: Implications, Issues, and Insights for Future Research and Action’, National University of Singapore Associate Professor, Jayanth Narayanan says leaders should know when to delegate work to employees and not over-monitor in an attempt to manage the uncertainty associated with a virtual workforce.

Such behaviour has been observed to alleviate worker stress, foster positive feelings towards the leader as well as the team and create an atmosphere of trust and understanding that facilitates efficiency.

During such uncertain times, it’s easy to feel left out. In such situations it is advisable to make employees feel needed by seeking out their opinion and including them in the decision-making process. Employees in turn feel trusted, needed as insiders in their organizations. Entrusting employees with new responsibilities, such as managerial duties when supervisors are overloaded or mentoring co-workers, based on their expertise, or experience with remote work, boosts confidence and makes employees feel empowered. As a part of the group, employees learn to value group success.

These trying times, during which leadership capabilities are put to the test, have nonetheless afforded employers the opportunity to demonstrate inclusive and supportive behaviour. Zheng is of the opinion that virtual get-togethers also helps to relieve stress and help co-workers to get to know each other in an informal setting. In such a setting, one fosters a sense of group belonging, and employees are held accountable by peers, which can be far more effective than being bossed around.

Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Editor-in-Chief, Sean Silverthorne in his ’18 Tips Managers Can Use to Lead Through COVID’s Rising Waters’ concurs that employers should create every opportunity for small talk. “Small talk can play an important role in workplace happiness—and these casual interactions are the first to ‘go missing’ in the virtual environment,” says Business Administration Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School, Ashley Whillans in a research titled ‘COVID-19 and the Workplace: Implications, Issues, and Insights for Future Research and Action’. She points out that, establishing ‘Water cooler’ conversations, workplace equivalent of ‘Lindalanga Sangamaya’, could go a long way in promoting belonging.

Whillans points out that, according to recent studies, there are links between employee happiness and organizational outcomes, such as productivity, absenteeism, and motivation. But the new norm of ‘working from home’ can pose considerable challenges for maintaining worker satisfaction. “Many people feel pulled between work and home, having to accomplish work with constrained resources, and are facing high job demands—three factors that predict lower engagement and greater burnout,” says Whillans.

Concordia University, Professor of Management, Gary Johns in the same study, opines that sick employees should be encouraged to stay home with paid time off. Johns observes that many employees continue to go to work when sick, due to lack of paid sick leave. Work overload, lack of backup, and understaffing also pressure workers to attend when sick. Johns observes that glorifying ‘toughing it out’ as an indicator of work commitment, that certain occupational cultures encourage, contribute to the spread of the disease. Yet others continue to work just out of love for work and are highly work-engaged. As remedy Johns recommends what he refers to as a ‘multi-pronged solution to contagious presenteeism’: Removal of financial incentives for attendance by providing paid sick leave, re-evaluation of features that places undue pressure for attendance, and championing an organizational culture that fosters pro-health attitudes.

INSEAD Associate Professor, Jennifer Petriglieri suggests that high-risk employees should be accommodated by management. Among the practical steps employers can take to shield high-risk employees include: Extending the ability to work full time from home; providing additional or enhanced personal protective equipment; creating a physical barrier between work stations using Plexiglas screens or by providing individual office spaces; and changing work schedules to minimize contact between coworkers.

Silverthorne opines that those in leadership positions should guide their team to create new norms, protocols, and purpose. He identifies the Pandemic as the ideal time to encourage ‘working from home’ and reassess available resources; reexamining information, budgetary resources, and networks that will help the team reach its goals. Members’ constraints should also be discussed and understood. Silverthorne sees the pandemic as a turning point in history, like 9/11 or the Kennedy assassination, a time to reflect and take stock of ones own life. Does your work reflect your values? Is it satisfying? Such questions could help one to self analyse, making a better leader who can first and formost lead oneself, before he or she attempt to lead others.

He also reiterates the importance of attending to one’s own physical and mental health, maintaining that physical and mental health best practices are not a luxury, but an essential aspect of risk management. He recommends that employers cultivate what’s called the seven ‘C’ attributes: Calm, Confidence, Communication, Collaboration, Compassion, Cash. Employers or leaders should project a sense of calm, so as to allay employer fears. Leaders should demonstrate confidence, that they are able to lead the employees, the company and stakeholders with the minimum of difficulty to others.

Communication is vital at a time when many things are uncertain. Collaboration, by a mustering of all resources, capabilities of all employees, where everyone feels that they can contribute, can go a long way to overcoming this crisis. We are all a part of some community. While it is easy to lose this community feeling, at a time when everything in our gut says to maintain physical distance, leadership can contribute beneficially to foster a workplace community feeling, through model behaviour. During a crisis it’s those who are less resilient, in a workplace, that slip easily through the cracks. Compassion at a time of crisis, towards such employees is a salient leadership feature. But no management should lose sight of the most commercial of the seven C’s, Cash. Conserving cash is critical, especially during a crisis. (SP)